My name is Andrew Schiano, and I work in Test for the Forefront Protection team. I would like to tell you a little bit about the soon-to-be released Forefront Protection Server Management Console 2010 (FPSMC). FPSMC provides centralized management for the Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange (FPE) and Forefront Protection 2010 for SharePoint (FPSP) servers in your environment. FPSMC is expected to be available as a free download in Q4 2010.
FPSMC provides multi-server management through a browser-based interface, and supports the following features:
Signature redistribution
The signature redistribution job is used to deploy antivirus signature updates to the FPE/FPSP servers in an environment. The most efficient way to update engine signatures on all your servers is to create a redistribution job to download them to the FPSMC server. The FPSMC server is then used as the retrieval point for all the other servers in the environment.
Policy (configuration) deployment
FPSMC supports deploying a centralized set of configuration settings to one or more FPE or FPSP servers in your environment. This is accomplished by configuring one of your FPE/FPSP servers to the desired configuration and then exporting these settings in xml format. The xml file is then imported into FPSMC, which can deploy these same settings to your other FPE/FPSP servers.
Patch deployment
FPSMC supports deploying FPE and FPSP roll ups and service packs. Patch packages can either be .MSP or .EXE file types.
Centralized incident reporting
The Incident Detection report presents data about the number of malware incidents and filter matches over a period of time on one or more managed servers. This includes the five most common malware types detected in your organization and the most recent detection date and time.
Centralized spam reporting
The Spam Detection report presents data about the number of spam messages blocked by FPE. This includes a pie-chart breakdown by filter type and a line graph showing the number of spam messages detected over time.
Centralized engine versions reporting
The Engine and Definition Versions report presents data about the antivirus engine versions and definitions on selected servers running FPE and FPSP. This report compares the current engine versions of the managed servers to determine which, if any, of your signatures are out of date.
Quarantine management
FPSMC supports retrieving quarantine data from managed Forefront Protection servers for local analysis and management, including delivering Exchange quarantine and restoring SharePoint quarantine.
Integration with Forefront Online Protection for Exchange (FOPE).
If you are using FOPE in your organization, you can use FPSMC to access the FOPE Administration Center to monitor your email flow. FPSMC provides access to the FOPE home page, quarantine, reports, and mail tracing facilities.
Auto discovery of servers
On a nightly basis, FPSMC will automatically detect new FPE and FPSP servers that have been added to your network.
Exchange Clusters -- CCR, SCC, and DAG
FPSMC supports clustered Exchange servers, including E14 Database Availability Groups.
FPSMC will initially be available in English. Localized versions in all 11 languages (Chinese-Simplified, Chinese-Traditional, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese-Brazil, Russian, and Spanish) will be released at a later date (to be announced).
Thank you for your time, and I hope you found this article helpful.
Andrew Schiano
Software Development Engineer in Test
